What better way to celebrate the coming of Spring than to attend a free opening reception for Morris Arts’ exciting new exhibit, , on April 3, 2014 from 6-8pm? This will be the Gallery’s 11th exhibit and second invitational show, featuring works by textile artist Natalia Margulis (Livingston) and Joseph Losavio (Sandyston), selected specifically for the high quality of their work and for their distinctive and imaginative interpretation of nature by the exhibition committee of Morris Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
Internationally exhibited fiber artist Natalia Margulis, born in Russia, has worked as a full-time artist in the USA since 1993, consistently gaining recognition and winning top awards for her works. She describes her approach to textile art as follows: “Inspired by nature’s sublime beauty, I use a needle as a versatile instrument to recreate our natural environment as an embroidered textile. With my stitchery, I investigate and express the endless transformation of nature through the seasons, from new life to decay. The fluid and supple qualities of fiber allow me to reconstruct the natural forms and textures which fascinate me… I am especially interested in creating the illusions of movement, delicacy, light and shadow.”
Commenting on her medium, she adds, “Embroidered pictures, by means of their softness and vulnerability, awaken a deep sense of belonging to the organic world: through visual perception we experience physical tactility. The fragility of fiber is used to indicate the fragility of the world and reflects my passionate desire to help save and protect it. Trying to expand the possibilities to express myself, I include all kinds of hand and machine stitches and often some elements of other fiber techniques such as dyeing, fusing, gilding, beading, heat distressing and embossing. These are my tools to achieve my art.”
Above: Natalia Margulis’ textile, Blue Reflections.
Left: Joseph Losavio’s The Music That Transcends All Coming In And Going Forth”, oil on canvas.
Joseph Losavio’s works utilize a variety of media including oil, collage, and handmade papers and reflect his complex, nuanced and intellectually layered life view. Although inspired by a number of Eastern and Western masters, Losavio’s work is nevertheless strikingly fresh, with bold shapes, colors and images that he describes as capturing “earthly desire and spiritual transcendence, realism and abstraction.” Often combining multiple landscapes within one work, Losavio creates scenes which have a mystical, haunting and highly poetic quality and which draw the viewer into his lush and intricate world.
Citing the timelessness and astonishing power of 25,000-40,000 year old cave paintings in Spain and Curator Dick Eger comments, “But, it is the very act of an artist interrupting, then rendering an image directly from nature – capturing nature – that is at the heart of this exhibit.” Eger likens Margulis’ works – which can take form two months to three years to complete – to the perfection found in the radiant illuminated manuscripts of the early Renaissance. Instead of liturgical verse, however, Margulis’ subject matter is the natural world which she captures with uncompromising skill and detail.
Of Losavio’s work, Eger states Losavio’s canvases “are not merely scenes conjured in Joe’s mind but rather each, a record of this visionary’s journey – a painterly travelogue.” Eger notes that Losavio blends multiple streams of thoughts and ideas into a cohesive philosophy and then presents it “in front of us so that we too can enjoy his world. His rich palette and exotic treatment of his subject is often suffused in the mysticisim that so fascinates him and that he has embraced in his life.”
Morris Arts thanks our corporate partner, NJ.com, for their generous support of the upcoming exhibit.
The exhibit is open to the public Monday-Friday from 10am to 4pm and by appointment, and will remain on display until August 27, 2014. Visit www.morrisarts.org or call (973) 285-5115 for additional information, including the exhibit catalogue which contains details and sale prices for all works.